Laws about age in India can be perplexing. When does a minor turn into an adult? Is it biology or politics that should decide when a woman is no longer a child and that her consent is legal? Responding to a petition, the Supreme Court has ordered the government to clear the contradiction between the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, which defines children as those below 18 years, and a clause in the Indian Penal Code that allows a man to have intercourse with his child wife without being charged with rape. The age of consent is globally contested. In India, it was first raised from 10 to 12 in 1892, in 1949 to 15 and in 1983 again to 16. After the Delhi gang rape case of 2012, the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 further raised the age to 18, reconciling it with the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act of 2006, by which 18 years for girls is the minimum age for marriage. But various high courts took contradictory views, taking account not of the law alone but of factors such as love or protection. In 2005, the Andhra Pradesh High Court upheld the marriage of a 13-year-old girl stating that a husband was the natural guardian of the wife under the Hindu Marriage Act. The Bombay High Court used this precedent to approve the marriage of a 17-year-old girl in 2008. Again, Rajiv Gandhi had reduced the voting age from 21 to 18 in 1988, making more than 90 million people voters overnight. Consequently, the Congress managed to finish as the largest party in the Lok Sabha elections of 1989.

Fixing an age of consent is tricky. Certain questions are connected: should the age of consent, or the age of maturity, be also that at which a young offender is tried in an adult court? Some countries in the West fix a lower age for 'heinous' crimes such as rape and murder. What is needed is a comprehensive approach to all related issues so that the age of consent for sex and marriage, of adulthood for young offenders, voters as well as labourers are given a rational basis in a rapidly changing society. The latest case has also touched upon the issue of marital rape against which there is no law in India. It is high time that the layers of old practices and beliefs were stripped away from India's laws.